Republic of Congo President and member of the African Union infrastructure committee Denis Sassou N’Guesso used last week’s Brics summit, held in Durban on its fifth yearly interation, as a platform to launch the Infrastructure World Initiative (IWI), which will take place in Brazzaville in November.
Speaking at the close of the summit, he said that, in addition to providing an opportunity for African governments to engage with large international corporations in general, the IWI would enable the Republic of Congo to develop much-needed infrastructure ahead of the African Games, which would be held in Brazzaville in 2015.
Already, officials were engaging with countries such as South Africa to leverage their experiences from similar large events, such as the 2010 FIFA Wolrd Cup, he said.
“We have to acknowledge that there has been slow progress in infrastructure development within the African continent. A lot of work still needs to be done to improve our transport system and telecommunications capacity. However, there is nothing bad that cannot be corrected. We are confident that the business and international communities will support this initiative,” he said.
N’Guesso emphasised that the Republic of Congo was strategically placed and aligned with a network of other Central African countries. Because it was a peaceful and stable country, it was the perfect base from which international companies could operate. It also had one of the fastest-growing economies on the continent, with gross domestic product growth remaining above 6% in most years.
Although the Republic of Congo had a high unemployment rate, particularly among the under-30 age group, which constituted 60% of the population, he said most were educated and open to skills development.
In addition, the Republic of Congo had good energy and mineral resources such as oil, gas, cobalt and copper.
The country also had the second-largest jungle in the world after the Amazon, representing 22-million hectares, which represented an important resource for the tourism sector. He said the government was committed to protecting this.
N’Guesso said the African Games had a distinct historic link to the Republic of Congo as it was the first country ever to host the event in 1965. “It then played a significant role in unifying our people and developing the economy of the country. We will, once again, use the African Games in 2015 as a catalyst to ignite economic growth.”
The President said improvements in infrastructure ahead of the games would build on over ten years of progress in this area during which more than $2.8-million had already been invested. This has seen the construction of eight airports and over 1 000 km of road, as well as the increase of six-fold increase in electricity capacity over the past six years.
Important ongoing projects included the further construction of power lines to unserved rural areas, the improvement of power distribution networks in Brazzaville and Pointe Noire, the rehabilitation of the Djoué dam and construction of the Liouesso dam, upgrading existing universities, building a new university and the implementation of the fibre-optic cable in the central corridor of the country.
Feasibility studies for the construction of the Dream Coastal road, which would follow the Congo river and include a multimillion-dollar viaduct were being conducted by French consulting company Egis International. The first phase, which would cost about 26.36-billion Congolese francs, would be funded by the French Development Agency and the second phase by the Republic of Congo's government.